I like that they made Venom both shiny and gooey at the same time. Doesn't make much sense logically but it's the two extremes of the symbiote's looks.
The concept of skipping 100 days ahead, but the crown thing happend on day 99, plus already being woth yelena, tells me we will be playing catch up with what venoms been doing.
Its a really fresh way yo frame Venom stories so I'm interested. Also action was serviceable and I like the symbiote/eddie interesting a lot.
Seemed like a classic back to basics Venom, no KIB or anything related to KIB-style lore (yet) that hovered over both Cates and Ewing which is nice. If Sleeper is the new perma KIB I wouldn’t mind at all. Might be a bit regressive but I don’t mind it. Art is fine. Story is kinda slow for an Issue #1 comic as it’s not super attention grabby(especially for a Venom comic) but I think I like it- but it does give me more miniseries vibes than an ongoing based on how much it’s teasing for this first arc. This kind of pacing/arc imo fits more for an established run for like the second arc+, it’s a strange choice to start with.
Ewing likes building on everything in the past and adding his touches of cosmic to it, so Knull was inevitable to return there. This tone doesn’t really fit a Knull so I’ll be happy if they’re on a back burner to not return during this run and maybe Venom just has some minor upgrades here and there.
Wonder if Sleeper being KIB is what allowed symbiotes under him to use some of their abilities, but prob thinking too much about it.
Yelena was barely in this one so I can’t conclude about her yet so I’m still iffy on her inclusion. That said idk anything about 616 Yelena.
The art is pretty cool, but I don’t like the symbiote head constantly floating around like in the movies. Also I wish they would take more time to rebuild the relationship between Eddie and the symbiote before introducing a new love interest or whatever that’s gonna turn into.
That Symbiote head comes from Lee Price, which was another gooey Venom so it made sense to me they went with it when Soule said he wanted a gooey Venom
I really like the vibe so far. I was worried there was going to be some regression back to street level after so much big-picture Venom stuff for so long, but they've written it well in that both of them are VERY aware of what they've been through, and are smarter/more confident becuase of it.
Intrigued about the "are you happy?" line, where Dylan is, etc. I can also see Sleeper as the King in Black coming back in a big way. All-in-all, the vibe is somehwat similar to Cates' first issue. Excited to see where this goes.
I liked Soule's previous Venom related stuff (Eddie Brock Carnage & Venom Unchained), and I really liked this issue. Venom's characterization here and the art style is fantastic...but I'm very nervous they are trying to remove Dylan from Venom's, for a lack of a better term, supporting cast. This is really disappointing. I would love to be wrong though, and see Dylan + Toxin show back up in a later issue and remain relevant.
That negative aside, As I said I love the artstyle and how Venom interacted with other characters. Also the reveal Venom has chemical powers like Sleeper, just on a weaker scale was a cool bonus to Venom's abilities.
I really enjoyed this issue. Eddie and the symbiote are back as Venom and they're determined to protect people regardless of the others' opinions of them. And I loved the dynamic between the two of them as true lifelong partners. Including Yelena as already being Venom's girlfriend did come out of nowhere but hopefully they explain it in the next issue how they met and started their relationship. Also when did Venom and Hazmat fight previously, I don't recollect that ever happening?
Still not sure how I feel about them making Venom just a glorified goop monster still.
His attitude also seems to have regressed as well. Before he had his Other, he was more passive and tried really hard to help others.
Now he's more on the "Eff you if you don't agree" powertrip again, which isn't helping anything.
I also noted that when he told the avengers to eff off, there was a 99 Days counter in the bottom right of the page.
They're clearly working on an overlaying story arc.
I did like how it started off with Peter offering to help Brock.
It just seems weird Eddie would be so antagonistic towards Peter when he was treating him like an actual friend when he was the KiB.
Overall, I'm happy that Venom is back, but the starting page feels like it was a bit like a loose launch.
No opinion on Yelenda. I'm fine with the relationship in a whole and don't have any strong feelings one way or another on that.
Overall this was hella satisfying. It kinda felt meta like a reflection on the bullshit Al Ewing pulled. The heroes and world are sick of and distrusting of symbiotes, while Eddie is sick of being hated and such and just wants to go back to good old antihero but still a good guy Venom. And after Ewings nonsense that’s how I feel to, Symbiotes stuff was blown to absolute insanity over and over and I just want to see Eddie be Venom be a hero, something Al refused to give us by blowing him through time immediately into his run then making him a criminal again and talking about how he deserves to be in prison and such.
The art was a bit wonky. But the dialogue is great to me personally. The symbiote is so fun here.
Overall I’ll give it a shot it’s a good start but then again so was Al Ewings first issue so we’ll see
Not sure how I really feel about Yelena as a whole yet, but they could pull it off. Looks like there'll be a lot of jumping back and forth in the timeline for these first few issues? Overall, enjoyable first one. Hoping we see some more on Dylan.
It was implied back in the prior series that the symbiote could do more with a bit creativity from MJ. I presume that's a carryover (and a nice one, I might add).
I am going to be honest I found it boring. They didn't do anything new or interesting they just did Eddie from before he had Dylan essentially. Acting like this bachelor who is acting like a jerk the only now dating Yelena. I think most of the praise is coming from the whole novelty that Eddie is back. Once that goes away it will basically be less well received
Aside from that, why did Eddie act so hostile toward Peter? According to the King in Black tie-ins, Peter was the only person who bothered to visit Eddie in prison to see how he was doing (not even Flash did that).
Objectively, Peter wasn't really in the wrong, but Eddie just doesn't dig being reminded of his mistakes every time he's got to chat with Spidey. It's more something weird about Peter's writing than his, honestly, I'm getting pretty tired of him bringing up Carnage at this point. It was bad, but dude, Eddie's trying to do better and succeeding for, apparently, a hundred days. Let the guy cook, we let Norman cook.
I think i'm gonna have to agree with that. But I also feel that it's also justified that Eddie can be a bit peeved, too. Because no one pretty much visited him at that time they dont have to like or excuse his part with carnage, but they could at least have shown up to see how hes doing. And the entire hero community just left him in cell. Despite some of them for example Tony doing mistakes like Civil War and still have the community as his friends. But to eddie, the moment he makes a mistake he gets no chance. So I can get why he's distrustful of them
Because they are regressing Eddie so when he shows up in either the cartoon show or doomsday they can have synergy. Spider-Man's antagonist rival who is a jerk to him
I 100% believe that characters like Dylan which progressed Eddie will be only mentioned in passing and won't actually show up
What do you mean Doomsday? There's not gonna be a Venom in Doomsday, maybe Secret Wars as a cameo or something, but nothing in-depth enough to demand synergy. YFNS has more basis, but I'm not really not seeing a lot of regression in general.
He isn't gonna go back to being Spider-Man's antagonist, maybe friendly rival at most, but right now there's nothing going on with Eddie that implies he's just being a jerk to Peter for the sake of it. Bro wasn't happy with Dylan's status being brushed aside in prison, or being reminded of Carnage, or of his Dad being killed by Torment, or a gang of superheroes showing up to threaten him.
Regression would mean that Eddie has an unfounded grudge against Peter for something that wasn't his fault... and proceeds to go on self-righteous killing sprees of criminals, hence "Lethal Protector." Soule's Venom is just mildly peeved with Pete, refuses to kill off the bat, and is actively trying to change how people see them as a monster rather than just delusionally believing themselves to be the misunderstood hero like they did originally.
You're free to not like the comic, I get it, I know you were more of a fan of MJ's run because it was so far apart from the status quo, but hanging onto regression as an argument isn't valid critique. I think it's valid to bring up Dylan's absence, because I feel it too, and how not a lot of attention-grabbing stuff didn't happen for this being the first issue of a run... but just saying "character regression" isn't it. Character regression wouldn't be Soule shoving Yelena into a relationship with Venom, it'd be bringing back Anne to life and rehashing the scared ex-wife storyline.
It isn't even a regression back to the early Cates era, Eddie was suppressing the Symbiote with medication for most of that. Here, they have a functioning relationship and talk to each other, consult with each other, we only got that sparingly during the Cates run because they were either separated or compromised on several different occasions. I just personally don't feel any regression, I just feel that Eddie/the Symbiote is tired of being talked down to and filed away as "scary villain/anti-hero," frustrated with other heroes constantly seeing them as a threat, and they both want to finally change that. That's way different from regression.
If anything? This feels like we're picking back up from what the end of Costa's run promised aside from boring Venomverse slop, with a communicative relationship between Symbiote and Eddie and more heroic antics. Feels like straight progression to me.
The single complaint I'd have is if Dylan is shelved and never talked about again, obviously. But if it's just him and Eddie having separate lives, not constantly interacting but still being father-son without any neglect? I'm fine with that, I liked how Soule briefly wrote him in Unchained and I want to see more of Codex-Toxin.
Feels like the generic back steps for a character’s development. Eddie and Pete were quite friendly back in Cates’ Run and now it’s degraded and why do people keep getting the use of Venom wrong. The opening titles refer to the Alien as Venom but Venom is the union of Eddie and the Symbiote. I get so bored of all these little details being missed, overlooked or ignored.
But not a lot happened. Venom takes down generic bad guy and, instead of leaving him to the cops, takes bad guy to town hall to flip off representatives of various teams. Then goes home to new girlfriend.
It establishes Eddie has a chip on his shoulder and the symbiote isn't thrilled to be bonded with Eddie again. That's a good premise to start from. I just hope there is more to the story then Eddie needing to work through his shit again.
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u/WildcatTM 3d ago
I really enjoyed this so far. Good writing, crisp art.
Also, I feel like a moron. I didn't read any solicitations, so this entire time I thought this the Anne who was Agent Venom in Venomverse. D'oh!